


Burn the Heart Out

by waltzwithus



Category: Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Howl's Moving Castle Fusion, John as Sophie, Lestrade might be a dog for part of this so stay tuned, M/M, Sherlock as Howl, also Mrs. Hudson? I dunno it's gonna get kinda sloppy up in here, because i had to, more tags once I figure out where the hell this story is going, science/magic fusion stuff, the skull as Calcifer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-12 07:03:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2100081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzwithus/pseuds/waltzwithus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the war with Strangia rages on, Sherlock Holmes, known to the people of Ingary as the Magician, does his best to uncover the disappearances of two noblemen in the King's court. And he doesn't seem to care if he turns into a monster along the way, so John supposes he should try to help if he can - but he's got his own curse to deal with, one that's rendered his leg all but useless. </p><p>Howllock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn the Heart Out

He remembers the burning. He feels it in his dreams, spreading from the pulsing open wound on his shoulder into his veins, into his heart. Snatching it, squeezing it, shredding it.

In the nightmares, he sees the vulture-man, the one who scavenges the battlefields, who tears the meat from soldiers who have not quite yet died. He will feel himself begin to burn from the inside out and he will wake with a scream scorched into his throat and his sweat will feel like soot and it will be silent and he will wonder, again, again, how he is alive.

The memory of his survival is coated in ash. Sometimes he imagines the sky: how it turned from orange blood to purple velvet, how the heat faded into a cool watery wind. Sometimes he imagines a swoop in his gut, a gasp of breath that calmed the flame inside him. Perhaps he was delusional; perhaps it is part of the dream. But sometimes, he almost feels it - a downy softness against his cheek, a low voice rumbling through the bones of his back. The dip and rise of wings.

***

“You look terrible,” says Harry when she steps into his clinic. He has spent the better part of the past three months here, since he was shipped home. His colleague, Dr. Sawyer, is grounded and reliable, and does not look at him with the careful hesitation that seems to swarm him whenever he steps out into the streets of Market Chipping. They have all heard the story: how young Dr. Watson, the late tailor’s son, was found wounded in the Strangian desert, with little memory of how he survived the most brutal battle of the war.

“Did you even sleep last night?” Harry continues.

He smiles up at her from his paperwork. “I’m hungry,” he excuses himself. “You’re late.”

“Well,” she says.

No apology comes. He scrawls a last few notes and closes the file. She is staring out the window beside his desk, her eyes brimming and pointedly avoiding him.

“Harry,” he says gently. She looks at the floor and shakes her head. He inhales loudly and stands, skirting around the desk to take her by the shoulders. She looks lovely today, her hair done up in braids and flowers, her hat hanging jauntily off her shoulders by a thick green ribbon.

“Your hair looks very nice,” he offers, searching her downcast face.

She snorts.

“Did they follow you?”

“No,” she snuffles, folding her arms. “I mean, not here.”

“Did you take the back road?”

“It’s faster!” she snaps.

He lets out a sigh and crushes her head to his chest. She gives two quick, tight shudders before composing herself and pulling away.

“It was _supposed_ to be faster,” she corrects herself, wiping her cheeks. “I closed the shop ten minutes late. Stupid Miss Fiancee couldn’t choose between eggshell and ivory.”

“I’ll come pick you up from now on. We don’t need to deal with this.”

“I'm not even  _seeing_ her anymore! We shouldn’t have to!” she cries, her still-streaming eyes sparking with rage.

“No,” he admits. But anything to keep her safe.

She pours herself a glass of wine over dinner. As he clears the dishes away, she refills the glass. By the time he slouches into his armchair with a novel and a cup of tea, she’s on her third.

“What’s the rush?” he asks when she makes the mistake of catching his eye.

She shrugs.

He stands, dog-ears the book, and moves to the table. “Enough for tonight.”

“I’m not Dad,” she sneers.

“Then don’t act like it, yeah?” He takes the wine and places it by his chair before settling into his book again, ignoring Harry’s cry of indignance.

Eventually, she recovers from her anger enough to retrieve her sewing from the heaping basket by the fireplace and settles into a hem. The evening passes in stale silence, and when John goes up to bed, he takes the wine with him.

***

He doesn’t want Harry taking the side streets at night, but he is a man, and a soldier, and doesn’t think twice about cutting through a few alleyways in order to pick her up from their father’s shop, which Harry now runs. He tries not to hope they’ll be waiting for her, but the protective, savage part of him thirsts for the confrontation.

He rounds a corner and there they are, lingering against the low stone wall. The alley is threaded with dusk, and the streetlamps from the main street cast a flimsy web of light between the buildings. A burst of adrenaline floods his veins, and he quickens his pace.

They hear his footsteps slapping against the cobblestone, and turn to him. “Oh my,” says the blonde one. He has Clara’s hair, flaxen and wavy, and her delicate posture, which on him seems all the more insufferable. “Young Dr. Watson, what a pleasant surprise.”

John smiles back wanly. “It’s my lucky day,” he agrees. “Didn’t think I’d be so fortunate as to encounter you gentlemen.”

“It’s been such a long time,” says Clara’s brother. “Since before you were drafted, I imagine. I suppose Miss Sawyer is glad to have you back.” He leans toward John conspiratorially and lowers his voice. “Truth be told, I think everyone is a bit relieved. It’s just not prudent, is it, an eligible young woman like Harriet, living on her own? Not to mention dangerous.” He straightens and looks to his companion. “Don’t they say the Magician will woo a young lady and eat her heart?”

The other man smirks. “Yeah, he would, I’m sure, except the cunt would rather drool over Clara instead.”

The corners of John’s vision fizzle black. He does not make a conscious decision to launch forward, but his fist is abruptly in the man’s cheek, and Clara’s brother is snarling, and John’s head cracks against the wall as Clara’s brother shoves him into the stone.

“Are you denying it?” He appears delighted at the prospect, in no way concerned for his friend, who is wincing and pacing with a hand on his face.

John tries to breathe quietly. He tries to remind himself that this is exactly what they wanted him to do: take the bait, bite first. Somehow the knowledge that he is about to get the living shit beat out of him doesn’t quite ruin the feeling of that idiot’s flesh beneath his knuckles.

“My sister is a grown woman.” His voice manages not to shiver under the repression of his rage. “What she does with another grown woman is not my business. Nor yours. But if you _ever_ so much as _look_ at her the wrong way again -”

Clara’s brother laughs, hot and rancid, in his face. “Not in much of a position to be making threats,” he says, and then his friend is back and John barely has time to blink before a fist is in his eye, slamming his head back against the wall once more. The pain spikes through his skull, staggering him for a moment; he lets out a soft grunt and tries to remember how not to lose a fight, and when a foot rises up to his stomach he grabs the ankle and twists. In a dizzying tumble they are on the ground, and John is pummeling at Clara’s brother until the other man’s foot connects with his side. He rebounds off the wall, scrambles to his knees and then his feet, and after a beat too long of stillness, he realizes that his assailants are not moving - that they are, in fact, frozen completely in place, like mimes: Clara’s brother halfway to his feet, the other with his arm stretched out at John.

The world swerves a little as John tries to make sense of this, and then snaps back into place with an oddly audible pop when he realizes there is a tall dark figure staring at him from the opposite wall of the alley. John can just make out his eyes, glimmering too brightly in the twilit shadow.

The figure steps forward, his features obscured by the brim of a deerstalker. Keeping his eyes on the frozen men, he skirts around them until he is standing in the small space between them and John, who is confronted with a wool-coated back and a fresh, sweet wave of cologne. There is a moment of stillness; then:

“Oh,” rumbles the figure. His voice vibrates through his back against John’s ribs. “ _Dull_.”

John opens his mouth to inquire what that is supposed to mean, exactly.

“Not you, doctor,” the figure says, interrupting before he can speak. “Now, gentlemen. I won’t take up much of your time, as I have far less odious obligations than yourselves to attend to this evening. I would be appalled at how utterly ordinary it is for a man cheating on his fiancee with the butcher’s niece and another engaged in a homosexual affair with his gardener to lash out against a young lady who prefers the company of women; but then, it would be wishful thinking to expect anything else from you lot.”

“Hang on,” says John, peering around the figure’s back to squint at the still-unmoving men. “How do you know all that?”

“How indeed,” replies the figure, a bit drolly. “I’d rather not curse you gentlemen, it would be so tedious, so why don’t we just agree that you’ll stay away from Harriet Watson, hm?” He taps the brim of his hat in a mock-salute. “Evening.”

And he strides away without another glance at John.

“Wha - oi!” John jogs to catch up, sparing one last look at the men, who show no signs of moving anytime soon. “You can’t just leave them there!”

“I think you’ll find that I can,” is the lazy response.

As they near the main road, the light from the streetlamps strengthens, and John gets a good look at the man, all angles, jagged and pale and swathed in darkness. An iceberg, John thinks distantly, or a blizzard. He seems to sense being stared at, and raises his eyebrows in John’s direction with a slight smirk. _Like what you see?_ John can almost hear him saying.

John reminds himself that this is called “projecting.”

“So,” he says, “the Magician.”

“Obviously.” They turn onto the main street, and John has an odd feeling that the Magician might be walking him to his sister’s shop.

 _Well_.

“Eaten any hearts lately?” he says lightly, because when confronted by one of the most powerful magical beings on the continent, why not tease him about his reputation for ruthlessness?

The Magician actually laughs, bone-deep, nestling into John’s ribs. “Not lately, no.”

“What,” says John, affecting an affronted gasp. “We can’t have our young women safe, can we?” God, he’s an idiot. Why is he still talking?

The Magician casts a sidelong glance at John and hums. “Not really my area.”

“Oh,” says John. “Well, erm… young men, then?” Watson, you complete moron, _shut up_.

“Hearts,” the Magician corrects him. “Hearts are boring.”

“Mmm,” John agrees amiably. “Can’t stand them myself.”

The Magician grins, a subtle, intimate expression. “You know,” he says, “this isn’t how most people react.” To what, he doesn’t specify, but the sentiment is clear enough.

“Which is how, exactly?” John can’t keep himself from asking.

But the Magician only smiles at the sidewalk ahead of them.

***

“Are you out of your _mind_?” Harry screeches once, safely home, he relates the events of the evening to her. “It’s bad enough to go looking for trouble with those blokes, but the _Magician_ , Johnny? _Christ_.”

“He doesn’t eat hearts,” says John somewhat absently, staring into the fireplace. “He was quite clear about that.”

“Yeah, and anyone who can cement two men in place is completely safe,” she snarls. “And who says he wasn’t lying, anyway?”

“Well, he didn’t,” says John. “Eat it, I mean.”

She gapes at him for a moment. “Unbelievable. You’re smitten.”

He shoots her a frown. “I - what? No, I’m not… I’m just. You know. He didn’t have to help me.”

They glare at each other for a moment.

“Anyway,” says John, looking away, “I don’t think you need to worry about those men anymore.”

“Yeah, I’ll write him a fucking thank-you note.”

***

_You in Market Chipping often, then?_

_Shockingly, no. I’m looking for… an old friend._

_Someone I might know?_

_No, doctor, I should hope not._

Which was a strange thing to say about a friend, John muses as he shoves the file of his last patient of the day into its cabinet and stands to fetch his coat from the hook by the door. He stops abruptly when he realizes there is a man sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting area.

“Sorry, sir, we’re closed,” he says, then frowns. Strange - he could’ve sworn he’d locked the door already.

The man smiles at him, a very wide smile. Perhaps a bit too wide, John thinks, eyeing him with trepidation. They stare at each other for long enough that John is distinctly uncomfortable, and opens his mouth to speak -

“ _Cute_ place you’ve got here,” says the man in a high, accented voice. Norlandish, probably. “So _homey_. And you make sick people better. That’s adorable.” His eyes bug out a bit with emphasis.

“Yeah,” John says uncertainly, “medicine is charming that way.”

The man scampers from his seat and trips his way to John’s desk, scattering the papers there with a swipe of his hand, then scurrying around it to poke at the rows of file cabinets.

“Uh, wait. Excuse me.” John hurries over, hovering uncertainly as the man examines the locks on the cabinets. “Yeah, you can’t - you have to go, we’re closed, and…”

“You don’t have any crutches around, do you?” asks the man, standing abruptly and whirling to face John.

“Sure,” says John, wanting to feel relieved. “Yeah, you can borrow them if you like.”

“Or maybe a cane.” The man’s eyebrows dance in a way that most people’s don’t when contemplating the compromised function of a person’s legs.

“I’ll grab something from the back for you,” John says, wanting to add, And don’t _touch_ anything, but he doesn’t.

When he returns, a pair of crutches under one arm and a somewhat decrepit cane under the other, the man is, blessedly, standing by the door again.

“Take your pick,” says John. “As long as it gets back here eventually. My best wishes to whoever needs it.”

The man’s eyes snap up to him, lit with that same fierce grin. “Actually…” He takes the cane from John, examines it briefly, and hums delightedly. “This will do perfectly,” he says giddily. “Did you read my _mind_?” Then he giggles, high and unnerving. “Speaking of. Send my regards to Sherlock, hm?”

“Sherlock? Who’s Sher-lock…” John falters as the man steps far too close to him, squints into his eyes, and, before John can step away, licks a stripe up his jaw.

Licks. Uh. Oh Christ. What?

And then he takes the cane, wallops it soundly into John’s thigh; John’s knees promptly give way, and by the time he recovers enough to look around, he is entirely alone in the office.

What the  _fuck_ was that?

Sufficiently disconcerted, John shudders, wipes at his jaw, and stands - or tries to, until a shooting pain wrenches through his right leg and he finds himself back on the floor.

Don't panic, Watson.

He tries again, and the pain is, if anything, worse.

 _Don't panic_.

He swallows, and reaches for one of the waiting room chairs. He manages to clamber into its seat. He feels queasy and a little lightheaded.

His eyes stray to the cane on the floor.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELCOME.
> 
> This is going to maybe be a thing? I don't know. I'll try to have fun with it and not take it too seriously and maybe if I do that it will end up getting written.
> 
> My plan is to fuse Diana Wynne Jones' plot with some Miyazaki elements and then see what happens. But then again, my plan was also to write this with the quirky fairy-tale-esque quality that Jones uses in the book, and then this happened instead so. Clearly I have no idea what's actually going on.
> 
> I have a tumblr because I caved and stuff, so yeah: waltz-with-us.tumblr.com
> 
> Thanks for the read, as always. :)


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